(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to cotton gins and more particularly to preparing seed cotton to be ginned and as one specific example to prepare seed cotton to be fed to a roller gin. Cotton gin operators and manufacturers are those having ordinary skill in the art.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Broadly speaking, cotton ginning relates to separating cotton seed from lint in seed cotton. However, a cotton gin system includes the cleaning and preparation of the seed cotton before the seed cotton is specifically fed to the cotton gin (sometimes called a cotton gin stand to indicate this particular piece of equipment in the entire system). It is at the cotton gin stand itself that the seed is separated from the lint and the seed diverted to one location for its particular use and the lint is diverted to another location for its particular use.
Cotton itself is normally divided into two major catagories. The fuzzy seed cotton or upland cotton and the black seed cotton or the long staple cotton sometimes called sea island cotton. The two catagories of cotton are often ginned by different type cotton gins: upland cotton being ginned by a saw gin; black seed cotton by a roller gin. Special equipment, called feeders, are used to feed the cotton to the cotton gin stand. In the case of saw gins, the feeder normally not only functions as a final cleaning process of the seed cotton but also is to feed the cotton in locks into the seed roll of the saw gin. In the case of roller gins, the feeder also may perform an additional function as to break down the locks of cotton into individual seed locks to apply them to the roller in this fashion. For example, see my prior patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,786 issued Apr. 10, 1990.
Those having ordinary skill in the art of roller gins understand that basically a roller gin includes a roller usually referred to as a rubber roller which has a knife or doctor blade adjacent to the periphery thereof and a rotor bar for pulling the seed from the doctor blade.